“I call on the Lord in my distress, and he answers me. Save me, O Lord, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues.” (Psalm 120:1–2)
Psalm 120 isn’t the happiest of psalms. The psalmist begins in “distress.” The psalm ends with the word “war.” But happy or not, it is honest…and quite relevant.
We’re surrounded by lies – we have been raised on a pack of them. “You’re the captain of your own soul.” “You’re a product of evolution.” “The world is material only – there are material solutions for everything.” “There’s no such thing as sin.” “Morals change.” “We can fix the world’s problems.”
The distress the psalmist feels is that painful awakening to the reality that we’ve been lied to! The Hebrew word translated as “distressed” literally means “a tight place.” The psalmist has finally reached his limit – with the lies, the malice – he’s had enough. He’s sick of it, so he leaves.
Psalm 120 is the first Song of Ascent…it was sung by pilgrims as they started their journey.
You know, our walk with God starts the same way. At some point, enough is enough. When we finally get sick of running our lives, being our own god…sick of the same old results we keep getting…and we turned to God.
In the church world, we call it repentance. We cry out to God in our distress and he answers us. We must leave the lying lips and deceitful tongues behind and walk toward God’s truth found in Jesus. He truly is the only answer for our broken world.
Join us Sunday online or at the church building and we’ll talk about it!
